Europe’s Other: Eurocentrism, Representations of the Colonized, and Orientalism

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Europe's Other: Eurocentrism, Representations of The Colonized, and Orientalism
How did Europe create its ‘Other’ during the era of colonization?
The spread of European institutions and culture was due to Europe discovering numerous sea routes to Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Europe managed to create its 'Other' by establishing structures that created a paradigm shift of seeing and knowing the West. As elaborated by Scurry (2010), the aspect of Orientalism explains the structures of power, imperialism, culture, and knowledge embedded in the western colonial discourse. Through these means, the West socially constructed and produced its Other. The success also came by achieving its control and management through the hegemony of power structures, culture, and political appropriations. This is how the European invented the Orient.
How were bodies of color and colonized populations publicly racialized, gendered, sexualized, and why were these processes critical during colonization?
Based on the presented video, the racialization of African bodies started through the ethnographic exposition where black people were caged in zoos for tourism purposes. These specifically happened in the Western boundaries aimed at caging the other races for anthropological reasons. Subsequently, the bodies of color were sexualized when women with bare breasts were paraded as objects of desire. The gender aspect was displayed in the objectivization of the body, where women were considered inferior to the roles of men. According to Nicolas et al. (2002), these processes are vital because they correlate with referential racism, gender segregation, and symbolic anthropophagy as legacies of colonial abjection.
What is Eurocentrism, and how does it manifest in racist and misogynistic discourses and practices?
Eurocentrism is a thought style in which Europeans assert themselves as superior to other non-European cultures. Eurocentrism is where the West assesses and evaluates Other societies and cultures with inferiority assumptions and biases. Eurocentrism also defines a perspective where the West boasts of economic, political, and cultural domination. Its manifestation is indicated by the early White women's organizations that focused on asserting themselves on supremacy and domination through racial privilege. According to Mahmood (2001, pg. 221), Eurocentrism laid the foundations for feminism, racial domination, and cultural discourses. For instance, feminism highlighted the inferiority complex and sexualization narratives.
How do popular images and characters, such as Jasmine and Aladdin in Disney's Aladdin, contribute to the stereotyping of West Asia (also called 'the Middle East) and North Africa? How are these images racialized, gendered, and sexualized?
First, Jasmine plays a r...